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The Jodhpur Jaisalmer express is perfect for traveling from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer (duh) overnight. It leaves from Jodhpur junction itself which is large, colorfully lit, and has an escalator. And you reach Jaisalmer railway station around 6 in the morning which is cold enough to warrant monkey cap, gloves, jacket, and shoes to be worn while going to sleep in winter.

We had booked stay in Oasis Sam desert camp through goibibo.com and it was very cheap for us because of all the credits my friend’s brother had saved up. The camp people themselves helped us hire a Bolero jeep to travel. But the check-in time wasn’t till 3. So, we went checked in at a hotel near railway station, slept a little, had some nice tea, and freshened up till it was warm enough to go outside.

First, we had breakfast at a restaurant nearby. Chola bhattura, parathas, some more nice tea. They played some Rajasthani folk music in the background on request. And the golden Jaisalmer fort was right outside so we took some selfies.

While still adjusting to the golden glow on the buildings that the limestone gives off on morning sunlight, we reached at the bottom of Gadi Sagar lake. There’s a small walk to the waterfront which is filled with colorful Rajasthani clothes, handiwork, embroidery, etc. That is also where I noticed the animals – dogs, goats – all of which had thick fur, acclimatized to the lazy cold weather of the desert land.

Colourful, no?

There is a small temple on the bank of the lake, golden in color as you would have guessed. You can remove your shoes and walk inside. I stayed outside looking at the man who was sitting at the entrance dressed like a sadhu welcoming people with “Jai Shriram” and other mantras (like Mickey Mouse figures in Disney world). There are what look like extensions of the temple in the lake, popping up from the water like somebody built a large temple and then the lake flooded it till just below the top. These were fully occupied by pigeons and the floor with their shit. The water was home to catfish so large that they probably could eat the pigeons if one of them fell into the water. These fishes were being fed dough by some people at the shore. That’s apparently one of the main activities here apart from boating. And taking photos, of course.

Next, we went to the Jaisalmer fort. We were swamped by guides as soon as we reached. They do have ID cards but they do charge a lot if you don’t bargain. We didn’t take a guide till we walked about 200 metres from the parking spot to just inside the entrance of the fort. It’s actually a good idea to do impulse control and see around for more before you pay money anywhere in Rajasthan, more so in Delhi. Although, if you take this to the extreme you will also find very cheap guides who also don’t tell you a lot of things – like we found at Taj Mahal later.

The Jaisalmer fort is a live city surrounded by three layers of walls. A quarter of the population of Jaisalmer live inside the fort in their golden houses. The inhabitants are the descendants of the same people who lived in the fort in the past. A part of the fort was for the Warriors (who eat non-vegetarian), another for the Brahmins (who eat vegetarian), and a third part for the Royals (who ate “mixed vegetables” in the words of our guide). Now, many parts have been taken over by restaurants who sell the same kinds of foods.

There are two palaces inside the fort – King’s palace and Queen’s palace. You see a lot of armors in the King’s palace. Everything ranging from bows and arrows to guns. And then the short heighted bed which the King would sleep in (so that he doesn’t get killed by anyone hiding under it), the halls where he would listen to people, and many other rooms with a lot of architecture. At one place our guide told us that the fort was built with limestone mostly but there’s one more kind of stone used rarely – “fossil” stones (I think that’s what he told), and it had magical properties like “being able to turn milk into curd overnight”.

At the roof of the palace you can see all around Jaisalmer. We had some masala chai and turned 360 degrees again and again listening to the guide and seeing the desert, the Pakistan border, the roads, the houses, the desert, and more of the desert. After getting down we found the route to the large canon on the other side of the fort. The canon was also at a height letting us watch the city and our jeep and five guides converging on new groups that arrive. We sat there for more than 15 minutes taking photos and enjoying the breeze.

Back near the parking spot we had some chole kulchas which were the best. And then we set forth for Sam.

Sam is around 40 km from Jaisalmer and I slept through most of the wind turbines and sand. The place is full of desert camps, camel safari, and other desert adventures. We reached our camp just after noon and we were the only people there then.

The tents are surprisingly well furnished. The beds, blankets, and carpets look just like any hotel. But the walls are made of layers of clothes. The door is just another cloth with ropes on the sides allowing you to tie it to the wall around (if you want to “lock” the room). The windows are improvised curtains which can be folded up by pulling the ropes on their sides and unfolded by pulling the ropes in the reverse direction. Another door on the far wall leads you to the bathroom which has solid walls on the other three sides and cloth roof. The floor was tiles. The water was salty. The bathroom was roomy, but I didn’t take bath because it was very cold and I didn’t wake up in time for the geyser next day.

There were about 50 tents like these arranged in a quadrilateral in our camp. The tents on one edge were actually solid rooms unlike our Swiss tents. In the middle there was a platform surrounded by chairs where the cultural programs would happen at the night. The common dining hall was at one corner.

We sat enjoying the architecture of our tents and putting socks and towels to dry on the guy ropes while others, mostly families, started filling up other tents one by one.

An hour before sunset it was time for us to move to the dunes at the opposite side of the road. The camp had arranged tickets for us in the ship of the desert to travel to the sunset point. We had 4 camels – Michael Jackson, Lucky, Bubloo, and Salman Khan. I was sitting on Lucky with my friend. Getting on a camel is easy since it lies down with its legs folded and you can climb like you climb on a bike. But once you’re seated, the camel gets up to its full height – hind legs first – and you have to hold on like Titanic is sinking head first. Pretty much the same when getting down or when walking down a sand dune. At all other times you can actually swing your hips with the camel’s and dance in that rhythm without holding anywhere.

Not posing

The ride was fun so we paid them extra to take us a bit farther to the “old Pakistan border” where we saw an old bunker and a wire fence and more sand. We saw the sunset on a “private dune”, playing with the sand and running barefoot from dune to dune. After sunset it got cold very fast and the sounds of cultural programs could be heard. So we returned to the camp where we were greeted in traditional Rajasthani style by a lady in Rajasthani clothes putting tilak on our forehead.

The cultural programs had started on the platform in the middle of the camp. People were seated around in chairs, and on the platform on diwans with masand. We drank some hot tea and ate some snacks sitting down. There were two singers, and drummers, and kartal players, and dancers. The songs were in Hindi and Rajasthani. The main singer also sang some shayariyas in Hindi which were really funny when translated to English for me. The dancers did Rajasthani folk with characteristic hip movements. They also did a few tricks by picking up notes and stones from the floor bending over back with their mouth and eyes, respectively. The lead singer then took over the kartals and did a wonderful performance along with the dolak. Rajasthani kartal is very simple – two flat wooden planks slightly longer than an iPhone 6+. You hit these together very fast, at various sound levels and you get music that sounds almost like tap dance. In fact, the performer was moving in such a way that it appeared like he was dancing with his hands and corresponding music came from in between his fingers. There was also a man who played with fire – swallowing it, blowing fire from his mouth, etc.

People started dancing from the beginning and every time someone would get up to dance the singers would ask them to sit down and wait for their chance at the end. Something that irked me was when people used to give the performers money while they were performing. For example, when the lead dancer was dancing with pots on her head and balancing on glasses at the foot, people would come and put money which she would hold between her teeth. After all professional performances, they put random songs and everyone started dancing while some, including us, went to the dining hall for dinner. The dinner was nice buffet. And there were many curries whose names I don’t know.

After dinner we went and danced till it was too cold and we went to our tents and sat talking.

Towards the night the welcome hosts came with tea and sent us off to the night desert. We walked up to the dunes, this time against colder breezes. At the top of a dune, we just lied down on the sand watching the stars (also crossing it off the bucket list of one of us). I stared into the Pakistan side thinking of soldiers at Siachen glacier for a while with the breeze making that eerie sound you hear in mountains. We then went back to our tents, had more tea, and slept. The hosts couldn’t arrange camp fire because nobody else was interested and the guy who promised he would arrange it if we wanted slept by the time we went back.

The blankets kept us in the bed for longer than we wanted to. We woke up when our jeep driver came looking for us so he could catch his next riders. After having a quick delicious breakfast we packed our bags back to Jaisalmer. This time going back I was awake to see all the wind turbines. Apparently these provide a lot of electricity in Jaisalmer.

We went back to the same hotel as last day, and stay put till noon rearranging clothes, munching snacks, settling accounts. We divided into two then and the first pack including me went shopping in the Jaisalmer market – carpets, clothes, and so on. The second pack joined us outside patwa ki haveli. We had bhelpuri and went inside. The entry fee to the building was ₹100 and so we didn’t go inside, rather took photos from outside. We then had to run for our train to Jaipur, so we got some food parcel and ran.

Jodhpur Express left Bangalore City Junction at ten to ten in the night of 27th. It would take about 43 hours to reach Bhagat Ki Kothi (which is to Jodhpur Junction what Yeshwantpur railway station is to SBC.)

When I woke up in the morning, we were near Hubli. And when I woke up again, we were still near Hubli. That’s when I decided Karnataka was too large and went back to sleep.

The men were playing a card game called ‘Mongoose’ which is just another name for ‘Donkey’. The way they distributed the cards was different though. Instead of dealing cards one by one to each person, there was an open deal in which each person pulled out a card to their hand in turns. If the card is one higher than the topmost card of any other player’s hand, it could be placed on that other player’s hand instead of our own. Thus distribution of cards itself became a game.

We bought two decks of card that night and played mongoose, bluff, and even that card trick about “387 years ago there lived A Queen who was 64 years old and had 2 children – Jack and King who were 10+9 and 5 years old respectively”.

We had home food packaged and ready to eat, everywhere. So all we had to buy from outside was local specialties. Aloo samosa and Bhaji from Gujarat and Rabdi.

Rabdi was from Abu Road railway station (which is where you get down to go to Mount Abu). Rabdi is a sweet which you get by concentrating all the goodness of a Litre of milk into an ounce.

We reached Mumbai a couple of hours before midnight. And the widely popular Mumbai local trains were plying along ours with a hundred people hanging from its doors.

Rajasthan was as green as any other state. Acres of farms on either side of the rail line. Crops which I have no idea as to what they are.

The train went at 95 km per hour for around 3 hours straight going into Jodhpur. And we reached just in time for baraat.

Before going to baraat, one has to wear the pagadi which is a colorful turban. If untied and unfurled the pagadi will be perhaps as long as a sari and as difficult to tie back into shape (which I realized when I removed it posing for a photo later in the night and had to wear it like a shawl ever after).

Dressed up, the groom and his party leave for the bride’s place. The groom on a horse with a sword by his belt while everyone else dancing in front, between the music and lights walking around. The actual marriage was in the wee hours of the next day which we slept through at the hotel so we could explore the city in the morning.

Umaid Bhawan Palace. That’s where the auto drivers took us first. Umaid Singh had this palace inaugurated by 1944. Speaking of Umaid Singh, he was the chief scout of Marwar state, King of the same, and also died of appendicitis shortly after independence. He built the rail lines to Jodhpur to bring marbles and other materials for the palace and that’s how Jodhpur got its train lines. He built the airport in Jodhpur because he was an aviation enthusiast.

Neat place to live in, huh?

And he also made me wonder whether development can come in a democracy, whether autocratic rulers are a necessary evil to get things done. Maybe back when machines weren’t as plenty as today and all construction had to be done by human labor (along with animal labor), Kings, dictators and their unjust rules would make sure some work gets done, but today machines can replace human effort and therefore it must be possible even in an egalitarian society to build huge structures.

The palace is now divided into three. The museum open to public which we visited, the Taj hotel (which contains the swimming pool) and that part where the royal family resides. The museum too is closed to public when the royal family celebrates birthday. North India hits your head with the fact that birth privilege based hierarchical society is not a distant past.

Inside the palace museum is the architecture, paintings, wood work, etc. There are photographs showing various political moments in the history, Jodhpur Polo team and their trophies, and so many details of the history. Then there is a dining room where many high profile people dined and where the menu was exotic. Also is a room full of clocks (time pieces) embedded on small scale replicas of all sorts of things – ships, submarines, guns, buildings.

Outside there is a garden which we can’t walk over and this collection of old luxury cars. So many Rolls Royce cars that the Mercedes Benz car at the end felt like market car. Most of these cars look long and large with their wheels very far apart towards the ends of the body unlike in today’s cars.

We had kesar kulfi and koffee on the way out. Funny it was served by the same person who was guiding us in the palace with nobody asking him to. In fact, when we had told him that we didn’t need a guide he said in Hindi, “If you are happy at the end, give me some money, otherwise I’m just happily helping you here for free”, a refrain we heard throughout Rajasthan.

Then the waiting autos took us to Mehrangarh Fort. This was one of the many forts we would visit in the next few days. There was a lot of intricate designs in phool ki mahal, sheesh ki mahal, and moti ki mahal (palace of flowers, mirrors, and pearls, respectively) but not very memorable. In between, near the palace of the Queen, we found a large closed door with some steps leading to it where we sat and took some pictures.

On the way back from the fort, there was this small lake and marble temple where the King was worshiped. And in the courtyard a man in typical Rajasthani costume was playing the Ravanahatha which is a stringed instrument (violin, cello, etc having been inspired from this) that now fills all the forts with an ambient music.

A video posted by Akshay S Dinesh (@asdofindia) on Jan 30, 2016 at 4:05am PST

Hungry, we had to go to Gypsy restaurant which was the first recommendation by at least two people. But it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner and so we went to another place the rickshaw drivers suggested and had chola bhattura, golgoppa, etc.

The Jodhpur market was on the same road. Clothes, spices, and other things to buy that reminded me of DD Urss road back at Mysore. Except Jodhpur has a colorful clock tower at the spicy end of the road. We also went to ‘On The Rocks’ which was a nice, though slightly expensive place to hang out, to waste some time till our train to Jaisalmer.

I had lunch and finished packing my bags at 3. Then I spent 5 minutes saying goodbye to my roommate which is when I told him that I'm going to North India for a trip. Of course I had to tell him at the last moment, because apparently last month he had gone to the same places I'm going towards the end of this trip. That must give a good idea about how much I talk with people in general.

The railway station is 15 minutes away by walk. And I had to walk. After all, if I miss the 3.30 train there's another at 4. Walking to railway station is important. Once you board the train, you are a different person. And it is this walk that helps me transition. With a large bag on my back containing all clothes and a small bag in my front containing all the books and miscellaneous stuff, people would surely think I'm a seasoned traveler. And that gives me a false confidence.

Maybe I'll be a traveler after this trip. Maybe I won't. That's why I'm going, you see? I'm giving it a fair chance. One month of moving around all over the offline maps I've downloaded should either make me love traveling or hate it. Either way, it will make up a nice activity for this month before my MBBS result is announced.

I didn't miss the 3.30 train. It was a full five minutes after I sat down in the general compartment that the train started moving. It was in those five minutes that this young mother sat in front of me with her son who must be 1 and a half years old judging by his fragile movements and short vocabulary.

When I woke up from my nap at Maddur station, she had just woken the boy up. And the Maddur vade vendors were all over the compartment. She bought one. And so did many others. (Some even bought five of them parcel.) But the boy wanted tea. And the tea vendor had just walked by into the next compartment. There was a coffee vendor around. So she bought a cup of coffee. She asked for another cup, an empty one to pour the hot coffee back and forth and make it tepid. But the coffee vendor wouldn't give her one.

Why would he? The number of coffees he can sell is limited by the number of coffee cups he has. One cup less is one coffee less sold. That is why he told the men surrounding the lady who asked him repeatedly to give her an empty cup this: "What will happen if I give a cup? Nothing will happen. Nothing will happen to you people who talk. It is I who sell the coffee. Those who talk can keep talking. I have to sell my coffee"

The old lady next to me gave her a small steel cup. And then everyone started talking. Everyone except me and another lady in the corner near the window.

The boy's father had gone to Bangalore in the morning, with their two-month old child, after a fight. And she was going to get the child back from her husband's house in Bangalore. She only vaguely remembers where his house is. But she knows for sure that her mother in law and sister in law can't take care of her child like she can. And that is why she was on train with this stubborn boy who threw half the vade down and would not drink the coffee either, instead choosing to cry and flutter his legs incessantly.

Everyone around was trying to distract their mind from her story by trying their best to stop the boy from whining. But of course they could not. The old lady gave them some tomato rice she had and the middle aged lady a chappathi, knowing very well that the boy wouldn't eat but the mother should. The men could not refrain from giving advice, "You should be humble and not create a reason for a fight." They themselves admit, "Of course, he drinks as alcohol all that he earns as a PWD worker and alcoholics don't need any reason for starting a fight." Yet they want her to change her ways.

They want her to go live with her husband in his house. To work in nearby houses. Earn some money. Buy a small house in Mysore. And by then the kids would be grown up so it won't matter how her husband behaves with her.

I didn't speak a word. What can I, a feminist, a social media activist, and a future health care worker, tell her?

When she was talking she mentioned that she had given a bottle of milk to her husband that morning. Probably so he would feed the child at least.

They say bottle feeding is bad for infants. So, in a few weeks this child might end up with diarrhea in the pediatrics ward of Bangalore Medical College. And the third year students there will ask her "Why did you feed the child with bottle?" And she might choose not to tell them the story of how children fall ill.